


what the water gave me

by vampirejanuary



Category: Rusty Quill Gaming (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/F, Fluff, Grief/Mourning, Lighthouses, Minor Character Death, Pirates, azu blames herself for everything, basically azu is a lighthouse keeper and sasha gets shipwrecked, but it's fine because they fix one another with the power of love, or something
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-09
Updated: 2020-11-09
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:15:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,893
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27163052
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vampirejanuary/pseuds/vampirejanuary
Summary: Azu is twenty five when the ship hits the rocks.(Azu is twenty five and hurting, resigned to a life alone, a life in pain.)
Relationships: Azu/Sasha Racket
Comments: 6
Kudos: 15





	what the water gave me

**Author's Note:**

> this has a really weird vibe. i don't even ship azu and sasha that much but i had the idea for this fic after listening to a bunch of sea shanties and had to write it so here we are.
> 
> title from what the water gave me by florence + the machine.
> 
> working title: "this is just karma for all the sea shanties"

Azu is nineteen when she leaves her village.

She has a healer’s hands and a healer’s heart and hope for the world. She cries as she says goodbye, surrounded by friends and family, with promises to return soon.

(Her family is so proud of her it _hurts_ and she is deathly afraid of disappointing them.)

Azu is twenty when she sees her first death.

It’s a young mother, too young. Azu cries, holding the screaming baby, next to his mother’s cooling body, with a promise to do better next time.

She does better and she does better and she does better until she doesn’t.

Azu is twenty two and she still cries over every patient she can’t save.

(Azu is twenty two and she _can’t_ go home, can’t look her family in the eyes knowing about all the people she’s let down, let _die_.)

Azu is twenty two when she hears about the lighthouse keeper.

He’s old and sick and herhealer's heart insists on helping. In between coughing fits, he tells her about his son, that he’s away, but he promised to return soon. Azu’s heart twists, remembering a promise of her own, made too long ago and still unfulfilled.

The lighthouse keeper recovers under Azu’s care, and her heart twists again, remembering everyone who wasn’t so lucky. 

(-the joy of life bittered by the grief of death, the knowledge that if she’d only been _better-_ )

He asks Azu to stay, to help with the lighthouse, and her heart aches and begs her not to leave. He is still old and he is still frail and his son is still absent and Azu can’t face her own family so she stays.

(“Only until your son arrives, you understand.”

“Stay as long as you need.”)

Azu is twenty four when the lighthouse keeper dies, quietly and peacefully and without his son. She cries well into the night and sends his body out into the ocean as the sun rises. Her eyes are red and her heart is raw.

There’s nothing she could have done, it was simply his time.

(But she could have gone to find his son, made sure he didn’t die _alone_ , without his _family_.)

Azu is twenty four when she keeps the lighthouse.

Her hands are stronger, surer, trained to care for the old light through even the worst storms. Her heart is shattered and twisted, empty and cold. She’s seen the world and her hope is gone, poured out into the ocean with the old lighthouse keeper.

(She cries every night, alone, with no comfort but old promises, broken but not forgotten.)

Azu is twenty five when the ship hits the rocks.

(Azu is twenty five and hurting, resigned to a life alone, a life in pain.)

Azu’s hands are strong on the oars, sure in their movements. The ocean is angry, but she is angrier. She’s angry at the storm above for being so wild and so dangerous; angry at the rocks below for being so sharp and hard against the hulls of innocent ships; angry at the world for being so cruel and unforgiving; angry at herself for not being _better_.

(She shouldn’t be angry, these things are to be expected. It’s in their nature, in _her_ nature, to be terrible. But she hasn’t felt anger, hasn’t felt _anything_ in so long that she embraces it, screams into the storm where she can’t be heard. It doesn’t help, but it never does.)

***

Sasha is twenty four when she is dragged, coughing and thrashing, out of the angry ocean.

She isn’t thankful at the time, but she isn’t much of anything except _cold_ and _wet_.

(Later, she doesn’t _know_ whether to be thankful. She _should_ be, but things have never been simple for her.)

The woman who saves her is tall and strong and beautiful, and for a blissful moment Sasha forgets her life of crime and thinks she’s an angel. But no, criminals don’t get to meet angels, and death would be too _easy_ , wouldn’t it?

And then she stops _thinking_ and starts _being unconscious_ and it’s nice while it lasts.

***

Azu can only save one sailor from the wreck. She’s thin and pale and almost dead, and it’s been _years_ but Azu’s hands remember how to heal even if her heart doesn’t.

(She doesn’t cry. There’s no time to, not with a patient in her bed and a storm raging outside.)

Azu doesn’t sleep, and as the sun rises the sailor opens her eyes, groaning.

She’s not awake for long, just enough to eat and drink, then she’s unconscious again. Azu doesn’t blame her; she’d been all but drowned when she’d been pulled from the storm’s icy grip.

(Azu blames _herself_. If she’d been only spotted the ship, if she’d been faster getting out onto the ocean, if she’d been _better-_ )

And so, Azu tends to the sailor for three days.

***

Sasha’s mind drifts, tossed and turned by some phantom storm but consciousness is always just out of reach. She has flashes of warm brown hands, gentle against her skin, and a soft voice, soothing and warm but _empty_ somehow.

(Sasha recognises grief when she hears it.)

Sasha wakes up, and she wakes up, and then she’s _awake_ , properly this time.

(“How are you feeling?”

“Uh, not great?”

“That’s understandable.”)

The room is small, impersonal, filled by the large woman sat by her bedside. Sasha would think it were some sort of hospital room if it weren’t for the photograph on the bedside table, a touch of the sentimental, a sign of life.

The woman seems uncomfortable, but Sasha is no stranger to uncomfortable situations, so she ignores it.

(She also ignores the fluttering urge to kiss the frown lines on her forehead. This lady must be _very_ skilled to have rowed out into _that_ storm to rescue survivors.)

_Survivors…_

(“There were no other survivors. I’m sorry, I couldn’t save them.”

“We’re- we _were_ pirates mate. Whole crew deserved what they got.”

Though that’s not entirely true, because while death would have been too kind _this_ is kinder and Sasha knows that she does not deserve kindness.)

This gentle woman is too good and kind to have to meet any pirates. Sasha ignores that she is a pirate too, and the woman ignores Sasha.

(Thank the gods; Sasha doesn’t think she could handle any scrutiny right now.)

The woman leaves, and returns with food. She’s gentle, but her movements seem mechanical, like she’s just going through the motions, still shocked to learn about the pirates, probably. Not that Sasha can complain, given that the treatment she's used to is a bit rougher than this.

(She didn’t _like_ it though, and this new gentleness is unfamiliar, but not unpleasant. She doesn’t think she’s ever met anyone _kind_ before.)

The woman’s name is Azu, she’s the lighthouse keeper.

(She frowns as she says that, and doesn’t explain how a lighthouse keeper got so good at healing.)

She insists that there were no other survivors, but it wouldn’t be the first time Sasha had thought that. It wouldn’t be the first time Sasha had gotten this close to freedom and she didn’t dare let herself believe it until she’d seen Barrett’s icy corpse herself.

Azu also insists that Sasha stays in bed. It’s quite annoying to have someone _care_ about her wellbeing this much.

(It’s quite _nice_.)

Sasha sets about counting her knives to fill the time. Azu seems _shocked_ as if it hadn’t occurred to her that Sasha would be armed.

(And it’s almost sweet how naïve Azu is, as if that naivety wouldn’t get her _killed_ in Sasha’s world and _why does Sasha care about whether Azu gets killed?_ )

Azu leaves Sasha to her own devices after that, as if Sasha wouldn’t just leave, as if Sasha couldn’t kill Azu before she even realised there was a blade at her throat. And it would almost be insulting but this woman is so different from anyone Sasha’s ever met and she’s so kind and really it would be rude to sneak off before thanking her.

(And when Sasha tried to leave she fell down, weaker than she’d expected and Azu had run in at the sound and when she scolded Sasha for not listening she’d sounded so _fond_ and it had been so long since she’d had someone who _cared_ , much less a _stranger_.)

Sasha doesn’t try to leave her bed again that day.

(But really, Azu only cares _because_ she’s a stranger, if she knew the things Sasha had done she’d leave and take her gentle hands and caring heart with her.)

Azu helps Sasha move around inside the lighthouse itself, but it’s still another two days before Azu lets Sasha go outside.

In the meantime they talk.

(“Are you really a pirate?”

“I didn’t _want_ to be.” Azu looks upset. “It was _fun_ though, sometimes. Like, it wasn’t _all_ bad, y’know? I liked climbing up the rigging and just looking out on the sea.”)

Azu shows Sasha up to the light at the top of the lighthouse. From then on, that’s where they talk.

(“Isn’t it annoying that you have to, like, carry me up all them stairs every day?”

“I don’t mind.” Azu pauses, but Sasha can’t see her face. “Not for you.”

And that’s _too much_ and it _hurts_ so Sasha is quiet and so is Azu.)

By the time Sasha reaches the beach, her ship has washed up in pieces.

(Her _home_ is in pieces, her _life_ is in pieces and Sasha’s sure there’s some sort of metaphor in there somewhere but suddenly _everything hurts_.)

It’s an hour before Sasha stops crying into Azu’s shoulder and properly starts _looking_.

(And she doesn’t know what she’s looking _for_ but she’s just sobbed her heart out in front of Azu and that doesn’t even seem _wrong_ to her because Azu is so _kind_ and _understanding_ and _nothing like anybody Sasha’s ever known_.)

She finds some jewellery and pretty rocks and bits of driftwood and they’re all rubbish.

(But they’re pieces of her past so she grips each one close and Azu stands beside her and helps her carry it all back up to the lighthouse and doesn’t say anything about the last few tears still streaking down her face.)

Sasha fills Azu’s spare room with _things_ as if she’s planning on staying and stubbornly _doesn’t_ think about it.

(It’s terrifying, but it’s _nice_ and she’s never had anywhere like this before. She’s not quite brave enough to say _permanent_ but it’s solid and real for now so she takes it while she can.)

Azu’s hands are steady and strong as she helps Sasha with her new things, as if her own room isn’t almost bare.

(And Sasha recognises the room of someone ready to leave at any moment, she’s no stranger to _temporary_ but it clashes with everything that is _Azu_ , so strong and self-assured, and Sasha wonders.)

(“So you’re staying then?”

“Yeah, I might stick around for a bit. Got nowhere better to go.”

“Stay as long as you want.”)

Sasha is twenty four when she chooses to stay.

***

Azu doesn’t notice that Sasha’s made herself a part of her life at the lighthouse until she _does_ and once she’s noticed she can’t stop noticing.

She’s always up at the light when Azu is working, sometimes rambling, comparing it to her life on the sea, sometimes silently staring out to that old life.

(Azu finds her presence comforting either way.)

Other than that, she spends most of her time out on the beach, picking through driftwood, and, watching from her bedroom window, all alone in the world, Azu’s heart _aches_ with guilt.

(And _oh_ it’s been so long since Azu’s felt fresh guilt but she’s been feeling more and more and _more_ ever since Sasha washed up into her life.)

But when Sasha’s not on the beach she’s bright and awkward, and assures Azu that her crew were terrible people.

( _Azu_ is a terrible person, she made a promise to save _everyone_ and she failed and failed and kept on failing until she gave up. Sasha is the first exception in a long time.)

Azu finds colourful shards of sea glass on her windowsill and smiles for the first time in a long time.

(And it still hurts, but Sasha always seems to appear from nowhere whenever it gets _really_ bad, and it’s surprisingly hard to feel guilty when there’s proof that you’ve done at least _one_ good thing in your life juggling knives in front of you.)

When Azu can’t sleep Sasha stays up too and they talk, words softened by the darkness.

(“I think you’ve saved me, Azu. It was- I mean I didn’t really _get_ to choose my friends before. Don’t really think any of ‘em really _were_ my friends, really.”

“I could have done more.”

“ ’m not sure I’d’ve _wanted_ you to save anyone else, ‘cause then I wouldn’t really be properly _saved_ like.”

Azu had never considered it like that before. It’s a bitter thought that curls up in the broken shell of her heart, a selfish thought, that letting those people die was the right thing to do, for _Sasha_.)

Then there’s another storm. It was bound to happen eventually.

And Azu is frozen, tears hidden by the rain, with an icy grip on the railing at the top of the lighthouse.

(It _can’t_ happen again; she _can’t let it happen again_.)

Sasha is right, the rain’s so thick and the sky so dark that even with the light she’d be useless at spotting ships anyway.

(She’s _useless_.)

So Sasha leads her down the stairs and wraps her up in a blanket and her hands are warm against Azu’s skin and it’s so similar yet so different to how they first met that she can’t help but laugh.

(And _oh_ it’s been a _long_ time.)

So Sasha makes them tea because she knows where everything in Azu’s kitchen is and they sit by the window, looking out into the storm, and they’re cuddling for warmth and Sasha’s head is on Azu’s shoulder.

(And her heart doesn’t hurt, and maybe she’s not happy but she’s content.)

The storm is loud outside but inside they whisper because there’s something between them that feels precious and fragile, but oh so soft.

(“You’re so, just so _nice_ all the time, tryin’ to take care of everyone. You should take care of _yourself_.” And Sasha’s finger is poking into her chest but there’s no force behind her words, just a gentle fondness.

“I can’t, I- I just _can’t_.” Because it _hurts_ , because it reminds her of those she couldn’t take care of, because she doesn’t _deserve_ it.

“Then _I’ll_ just have to take care of you.” And Sasha sounds so _confident_ , so _sure_ , as if Azu isn’t a _monster_ , as if she’s _worth taking care of_ that she can’t argue.)

The sun rises and Azu’s stiff and aching but something in her chest is warm, and that tentative warmth stretches and twists to fill her empty spaces as Sasha rambles about all the driftwood the storm’s bound to have washed up.

(She beams up at Azu and it’s so bright it _aches_ like an unused muscle, but it doesn’t _hurt_ and Azu relishes in it.)

There’s an old locket with a broken chain and three shells on her windowsill alongside the ever-growing pile of sea glass now.

Azu combs the beach with Sasha, though she doesn’t have Sasha’s knack for finding interesting bits and bobs amongst the sand. She talks about how she left her family to try and help people, about how she came to be the lighthouse keeper.

(“But like, the kid survived though?”

“Yes. Unfortunately I couldn’t save his mother.”

“But like, if it hadn’t been for you, the kid would’ve died too, right? Like, if you hadn’t been there, it would’ve been _much_ worse.”

“I… hadn’t considered it like that before.”

“Well that’s not very smart. If you only ever think about the _bad_ things that happen, you’ll just be _sad_ all the time.”)

And then there’s a body in the sand, waves crashing gently against it and Azu’s world drops away because _there’s a body in the sand_.

And it’s all a bit of a blur because she’s checking for a pulse that isn’t there and Sasha is crying and she’s not responding then there’s salt in her eyes and it could be the ocean but it could be tears of her own but it doesn’t matter because _Sasha is crying_.

(“It’s him, Azu, it’s really properly him. He’s _dead_. All that time I was terrified of him but he’s just a man. He’s just dead.”)

And then they’re both properly crying, knelt in the sand next to the corpse of Sasha’s tormentor and it feels like something’s changed, like things are different now and Azu is scared but she’s got Sasha and Sasha’s got her and they’re just clinging to each other.

(And secretly, selfishly, for the first time ever, Azu is _glad_ of a person’s death.)

Things are quiet after that. They just leave him there for the ocean to take and carry on down the beach. Sasha finds an old dagger, battered and rusted, and her smile sends Azu’s heart spiralling in happy little circles.

Later that afternoon, as they head back up the beach, the body is gone, washed away forever. Neither of them mentions it.

(Later yet, when the light illuminates the dark sky, there’s an old dagger on Azu’s windowsill. She isn’t even surprised to find herself smiling at it.)

Even later, in that quiet space before the sunrise, Sasha thanks Azu, and spills her history like the sun spills its rays into the sky. And Sasha is hurting, they’re both hurting, but this feels better, somehow. Like re-breaking a bone so it can heal right.

***

Sasha is happy here, in the space between the sky and the sea. She’s happy here with Azu, in a bubble of peace.

(With Azu, to whom she’d confessed her sins and received forgiveness she hadn’t even known she’d wanted.)

And Azu is happy to have her here, shifting to make room for her to sit by the window, opening her arms to welcome her for a hug.

(Azu is happy to have her here but Azu is not _happy_.)

Sasha tries, and it almost works. Azu always smiles to find presents on her windowsill, always grins to find Sasha beside her, appearing from nowhere and standing too close. But it’s never _permanent_ , and now that Sasha’s had a taste, she’s desperate for something to rely on.

(Sasha recognises grief when she sees it.)

Azu knows Sasha now, knows her past and how it pains her. And Azu helped, she’s always _helping_ but simply having Azu, having someone see her scars and _choose not to leave_ is a rare thing and Sasha is healing because of it.

(And a small part of Sasha, smaller every day, is scared, _terrified_ of how vulnerable that makes her. But she takes the fear, embraces it, because it makes it so much sweeter each time Azu proves it wrong.)

In this same way, Sasha knows Azu, knows her past and her pains. And Sasha sees Azu; wishes she could help her, show her that she’s worth something, that she’s _important_ for so many reasons more than what she offers everyone else.

Looking at Azu is like looking into a broken mirror.

Sasha sees all of this, and she sees what Azu does not. Sasha chooses to stay with Azu and Azu chooses to stay with Sasha but Azu is _stuck_. Tied to the lighthouse by some twisted sense of guilt, of duty to a long-dead old man.

(Sasha sees this and her pirate’s heart twists but does not break for this beautiful woman full of all the love in the world for everyone but herself, and Sasha feels helpless.)

So Sasha does the only thing she can. It’s twisted and it’s _wrong_ but she does it anyway, because Azu cannot heal without it.

Azu doesn’t cry when Sasha says she’s leaving, that she’ll be back soon.

(Sasha knows Azu; knows that Azu is remembering a broken old promise, and a lighthouse keeper’s son, and Sasha knows that Azu does not expect Sasha to be back soon.)

And Sasha doesn’t cry when she leaves her favourite dagger on Azu’s windowsill, the only new thing there, the only thing not scrounged from the beach, unwanted by the sea.

(Sasha cries later, on the boat to find a family that neither know nor love her, knowing that she is so, so _cruel_ but knowing that sometimes you have to be cruel to be kind.)

Sasha is twenty five when she chooses to leave, and it almost breaks her.

***

Azu is twenty six and she’s alone again.

This time it’s worse. This time she feels the numbness more acutely than she’d ever felt the pain.

Feeling love again only makes the loneliness worse and there’s _nothing she can do_.

Azu is twenty six and Sasha _promised_ she’d be back soon, but Azu has tasted promises like broken glass in her mouth for seven years and she knows it will not get better.

***

It takes a month, in the end.

***

It’s been stormy again and without Sasha to calm her down, look after her, Azu has been up by the light all night. The storm broke in the early hours of the morning, and her sleep has been fitful enough lately that she doesn’t even bother trying any more.

So with the sun creeping over the horizon she slips back into her room.

And bathed in golden light, silhouetted against the rising sun, Sasha is on her windowsill.

***

They’re both crying and Sasha is apologising because a month is soon but she wishes it were sooner but Azu is just glad she’s there at all and it _hurts_ to realise how lonely Azu had become so quickly because she deserves _better_.

But Sasha knows that and Sasha has tried to do better for her, tried to keep a promise she didn’t make to a dead woman she never met because Azu is perfect and she _loves her_.

And Sasha will keep choosing to love her because it’s the only good thing she knows how to do.

***

When they’re done kissing and crying Sasha leads Azu downstairs and there’s her brother and it’s been seven years and she’s crying again because it’s been _seven years how could she be so stupid_.

It’s scary, because telling people that you changed and you lost faith in the world will always be scary but Sasha’s holding her hand and Emeka is hugging her and it’s not perfect but it’s _good_ and that’s all it needs to be to break seven years of bad luck.

So Sasha takes one hand, and Emeka takes the other, and Azu, for the first time since she stared death in the face and swore to do better, feels hopeful.

The lighthouse keeper is gone and his son isn’t coming back but Azu doesn’t _need_ to stay here.

Azu is twenty six when she returns to her village.

It wasn’t soon but it isn’t _never_ and it lifts a weight Azu didn’t know she’d been carrying.


End file.
